North Carolina Trying to Make Complementary Practitioners Felons – Please TAKE ACTION!

NOTE THAT ON ARIL 7 THE BAD BILL DISCUSSED BELOW WAS SUCCESSFULLY AMENDED AND THE BILL IS NO LONGER A THREAT

What have I been doing for the past week? Trying to stop the North Carolina legislature from making felons out of homeopaths, naturopaths, herbalists, aromatherapists, some midwives and others. Just a small little task. IF ONLY!

I didn’t find out about Senate Bill 31 (SB 31), which clarifies the penalty for the practice of unauthorized medicine, until it was fully approved by the NC Senate and scheduled for its one and only NC House of Representatives committee stop.

I was a lobbyist. I know how bills are supposed to work. A legislator files a bill (usually with loads of co-sponsors if it is far-reaching like this one). The bill gets sent to three or four committees in the House and Senate. Public testimony is taken at committee meetings. If it makes it out of committee and onto the full House and Senate floors and it is ultimately approved, then it goes to the Governor for signature or veto.

What has happened with SB 31? There is one bill author and no sponsors other than the author. One committee meeting in the Senate and one in the House. The public at large (aka me) didn’t find out about it until the Senate passed it and the House was poised to approve it at its one committee meeting. NO PUBLIC TESTIMONY WAS TAKEN at the House committee meeting. This meeting was the only one that occurred when the public was finally starting to learn about the bill. The meeting was moved at the last moment without notice and you would think that would derail public attendance. Still, the room was packed and no public comment received. With some debate it was passed unanimously and scheduled for the full House to consider it, and then on to the Governor for approval.

By now I am fully out of political retirement, which I have enjoyed for five years. I worked for three days to derail this thing. The vote was delayed on Friday and again on Monday (April 4). Another Holistic Mom stepped up in a huge way and helped spread the word. And I mean in a huge way. This relatively shy person found her voice – and the NC legislature is paying.

It looked like there was no way to stop House approval, so we focused our efforts on alerting the Governor and going for the veto (we have only 11 days after House approval – if they approve it). Amazingly, the House deferred and we then realized we should contact our representatives and urge them to vote NO! The bill was deferred again until today (Tuesday). Now we are targeting the House Speaker. The email that I sent to him is below.

In addition to all of our local grassroots efforts, I contacted Mike Adams, the Health Ranger of the Natural News to ask for help and he was listening! His group put out a great alert: NC bill threatens to criminalize naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, midwives, aromatherapists as felons. With him on our side, I next contacted the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Here’s hoping they take on the issue as well.

Finally, here is the email I sent to the House speaker. If you want to make your voice heard and prevent a bad bill that could bleed over to other states, please make the calls using the contact information provided in the natural news article NC bill threatens to criminalize naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, midwives, aromatherapists as felons. If you want to email the Speaker, you can reach him here: Thom.Tillis@ncleg.net.

Dear Speaker Tillis,

I am glad that the NC House has again delayed the vote on SB 31. I remain adamantly opposed to this bad bill. So opposed, in fact, that I contacted Mike Adams of the internationally known Natural News (www.naturalnews.com). He has posted an action alert and emailed interested citizens http://www.naturalnews.com/031953_medical_practice_licensing.html. He is committed to fighting this bill and I will be coordinating with him and others if this bill makes it to the Governor’s desk. In addition, I have contacted The Daily Show and requested that they monitor what the House does with this bill and requested that they make commentary if the House passes it. The irony is unbelievable - Big Pharma and western medicine can injure and kill people regularly (the diabetes drug Avandia, statins, etc.) without penalty, yet alternative practitioners can be charged as felons even though they do not perform the same functions as those responsible for injuring and killing so many people in America and around the world.

Here are just a few statistics about the deaths that America’s mainstream medical system is legally immune from (http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm), and this is certainly an underreporting of events and doesn’t include injuries:

The JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA) Vol 284, No 4, July 26th 2000 article written by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.

The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness. (drug reactions are the most common cause).

Clearly, there is a much bigger problem out there that must be addressed, and creating a felony charge for alternative practitioners does not even remotely take care of it.

Additional specific reasons for my opposition are as follows:

SB 31 flew under the radar until the last few days and the ease with which it went through the legislature, with only one committee stop in each house is staggering. I was appalled that there was no testimony taken during a packed House Judiciary Sub-committee meeting the other day. Now concerned citizens, and their numbers are growing as awareness spreads, are pretty much left with urging the Governor to veto this bad bill.

This bill has many consequences, the biggest of which is to make legitimate practitioners, including naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, Ayurvedic healers, aromatherapists, some midwives and others subject to felony charges. This will have a very chilling effect on a segment of health care that many of us rely strongly upon. There is no basis for subjecting these practitioners to the possibility of felony charges and it will certainly drive many out of practice for fear of losing many of the benefits of U.S. citizenship that comes along with being convicted of a felony. It is highly ironic that the makers of Avandia, the killer diabetes drug, and statins, which benefit no one, face no possible criminal charges, yet people who use food, herbs, and other methods do.

If SB31 becomes law, it will increase healthcare costs for everybody because it will shut down the option consumers currently have to seek care from alternative healthcare providers whose services are paid for out of pocket. Most alternative care providers are not covered by insurance policies, and consumers who would proactively choose to pay for healthcare services out of pocket, will suddenly be forced to find MD's and make use of their insurance thereby raising costs for all. Alternative health care consumers actually provide a much needed pressure release on the rising costs of healthcare in NC. Shutting down their access to alternative choices in care will increase health care costs in NC, and this is bad for everybody.

Finally, there are already laws on the books to handle any injury caused by someone impersonating a medical professional. This bill is unnecessary and grows the government bureaucracy at a time when fiscal resources are already too thin.

I wish this email was not so harsh, but with my alternative practitioners in trouble and with little time to act, I had to get straight to the point. They have been critical to my family’s health and I want to ensure that they will be here for years to follow – not snuffed out by a bad piece of legislation.

Thank you for your consideration of these points. Please vote NO on Tuesday.

Sincerely,

Laura Combs

Comments

[nausea during pregnancy]

Whoa...Scary! I just emailed (and will be calling too). Thanks for all this information.